Connection

Prayer connects us with the Source through humility, supplicancy, innocence, and insignificance.

BY N. S. NAGARAJA 

Lastly the most important and unfailing means of success is the prayer. It connects our link with God to whom we surrender ourselves with love and devotion. In prayer we stand before Him as an humble suppliant presenting to Him our true state and completely resigning ourselves to His will.

—Babuji, Complete Works of Ram Chandra, vol. 1, pp. 41–42.

Babuji calls prayer “the most important and unfailing means of success,” and in the very next line he tells us why: “It connects our link with God.” In his view, prayer is not a request, a ritual, or a recitation. It is a connection.

Most of us live without feeling this connection. When we are occupied with sorrow or excitement, our awareness narrows to a single point, and the world around us seems to disappear. This narrowing is our default setting. We live as a body-mind complex, connected strongly to ourselves, a little to family and friends, and only vaguely to the Source from which everything came. We have not lost the connection. We have simply stopped being aware of it. Prayer is how we become aware of it again.

In this series, Connection is the C in SACRED: the living link between the practitioner and the Source, through which the current of Divinity flows. Prayer is where that link is made.

The Switch

A simple way to understand prayer is to think of a switch. The power is always there. The wiring is already in place. Close the circuit, and the light comes on.

Babuji explains the principle in his Commentary on the Ten Maxims. The central point, the Source, “was already rooted deep in all the beings,” and prayer turns our attention toward it:

In prayer we try to reach up to that central point. This is however possible only when we create a similar state within. This requires practice. It can be attained by resigning ourselves to the divine will which is absolutely simple and tranquil. Apparently it seems to be very difficult, though in fact it is not so. It is not difficult for those who aspire for it. When a man creates in himself a strong craving for the Absolute, he is indeed in a state of prayer… Whenever a man enters into that state even for a moment, his prayer is granted but it requires continued practice to accomplish it.

— Babuji, Complete Works of Ram Chandra, vol. 1, p. 208.

“Whenever a man enters into that state even for a moment, his prayer is granted.” That is the switch. The connection does not have to be earned over years before it works. It responds the moment the inner condition matches. What takes years is learning to enter that state at will and to stay in it.

Daaji describes what that inner condition is through an electrical image of his own:

The process is so simple, so beautiful, and so scientific. The attitudes of humility, supplicancy, innocence, and insignificance create a vacuum in the heart so that the current from the Source flows in and enlivens the connection, just as electrical current flows from the positive to the negative pole in an electrical wire. Our job is to create the negative polarity by allowing a receptive, yielding state within the heart. If we are not yielding, if our attitude is strong or demanding, with self-importance or force, then no vacuum is created in the heart, so there is no flow. It is a natural phenomenon, and our manner creates the condition for the flow to be activated or not.

—Daaji, Designing Destiny, p. 47.

The Source is the positive pole and the heart is the negative pole. Our attitude is the switch: when the heart yields, the vacuum forms and the current flows; when it asserts itself, nothing flows. Daaji gives this vacuum its proper name: “That state of vacuity or negation also establishes a relationship of devotion with the Divine” (Designing Destiny, p. 46). Babuji describes the same law in his own words:

Human perfection lies in realising the Master as Master in true sense, and oneself as His slave devoted entirely to His service. By doing so one creates in himself a state of negation which attracts His direct attention and establishes a link with Him.

—Babuji, Complete Works of Ram Chandra, vol. 1, p. 230.

What Creates the Vacuum?

Daaji identifies four attitudes that create the vacuum in the heart: humility, supplicancy, innocence, and insignificance. 

Humility

Humility is the most sublimated state of ego. Humility is not flattery or servility. Instead, humility is a sign of great self-awareness, where you are aware of your smallness in front of a much bigger ideal.

—Daaji, Spiritual Anatomy, p. 65.

The Source is the positive pole 
and the heart is the negative pole. 
Our attitude is the switch: when the heart yields, 
the vacuum forms and the current flows; 
when it asserts itself, nothing flows.

Humility does not imply a lack of confidence. We recognize ourselves as instruments of something greater, allowing that power to work through us. The word comes from the Latin humus, earth or ground. To be humble is to stand close to the ground. The ego isn’t destroyed; it’s brought low and put in its proper place, as a servant. Humility is not low self-esteem. It is an accurate sense of scale: I am small before the ideal, and the work is done through me, not by me. In the Bhagavad Gita, amanitvam, freedom from pride, comes first in the list of qualities of true knowledge.

Humility is the ego sublimated: an accurate awareness of one’s smallness before the ideal, and of being an instrument, not the doer.

Supplicancy

Babuji describes the supplicant as one who stands before Him “presenting to Him our true state and completely resigning ourselves to His will.” In his tenth maxim, he describes the mood itself:

There is such a tender softness in it as cannot be translated in words, and which reveals his feelings of true supplicancy. That means that the impediments present in him are removed and the weight thereof has been set aside.

—Babuji, Complete Works of Ram Chandra, vol. 1, pp. 230–31.

Daaji describes the feeling at its root as “a kind of helplessness, a feeling that, ‘Without Thy help, I cannot reach the destination’” (The Heartfulness Way, Vol. 2, p. 81).

The Latin supplicare consists of sub, under, and plicare, to fold or bend. Supplication has long been associated with bending or kneeling before someone greater than oneself. Supplication is not begging for things. Babuji calls praying “for petty worldly ends” a folly. It is presenting our true state honestly, admitting we cannot get there alone, and resigning ourselves to His will. This is why even the word “please” is too heavy: supplicancy offers itself and does not demand.

Supplicancy is the heart bent in need: offering its true state, admitting its helplessness, and resigning itself to His will without demand.

Innocence

Babuji ties innocence directly to the attitudes before it: 

The feeling of humility, which may as well be expressed as a state of supplicancy, covers within it the condition of innocence. One who attains it has in a way attained all, though apparently it may not seem to be so.

— Babuji, Complete Works of Ram Chandra, vol. 1, p. 231. 

The one who prays in this mood, he says, “assumes a state of absolute purity like that of the divine currents which are absolutely free from mala (impurities), vikshep (unreal projections) and avarana (layers of grossness).”

Innocence in prayer is the heart without calculation: 
no hidden motive, no bargaining with God, 
no projecting of what should happen. 
It is a child’s openness. 
It is not naivety or ignorance; 
it is simplicity that has nothing to hide.

The word comes from the Latin in, not, and nocere, to harm. Its first meaning was harmlessness, close to ahimsa. Later it came to mean freedom from guile. Innocence in prayer is the heart without calculation: no hidden motive, no bargaining with God, no projecting of what should happen. It is a child’s openness. It is not naivety or ignorance; it is simplicity that has nothing to hide.

Innocence is the heart free of guile and calculation:
open and harmless, like a child before its parent.

Insignificance

It was the condition of insignificance (abhoodhiyat, or subdued state)… In this state one doesn’t care about things like respect, disrespect, and so on. One is centered in Thou, and that’s where the attention rests.

—Daaji, Spiritual Anatomy, p. 220.

Daaji is careful to say what it is not: “It’s not a comparative state where one thinks of themselves as insignificant by beating down one’s ego. The inner softness of the heart is such that the idea of any form of comparison is lost.” He reads Hanumaan’s name as an example: hanu, without, and maan, respect, “one who doesn’t care for one’s own maan or apmaan (respect or disrespect).”

Abhoodhiyat, more commonly written ‘ubudiyya, comes from the Arabic ‘abd, servant, and names the station of pure servanthood. The English word comes from significare, to make a sign. To be insignificant, in this sense, is to stop making signs of oneself and stop needing to be noticed. Daaji describes insignificance as where the qualities of prayer lead: purity, innocence, humility, and longing, he says, “help us arrive at a subdued state akin to utmost insignificance” (The Heartfulness Way, Vol. 2, p. 81).

Insignificance is the self without comparison:
no longer making signs of itself, indifferent to
respect and disrespect, with attention resting
wholly in Thou.

From Posture to State

As we saw in the article on attitude, an attitude always begins as a posture. These four are no exception: each word describes a way of holding the body before it describes a state of the heart. To be humble is to be close to the ground. To be a supplicant is to bend. To be innocent is to stand like a child. To be insignificant is to make no sign of oneself.
 

It was the condition of insignificance 
(abhoodhiyat, or subdued state)… 
In this state one doesn’t care about things 
like respect, disrespect, and so on. 
One is centered in Thou, and 
that’s where the attention rests.

—Daaji, Spiritual Anatomy, p. 220.

Prayer is where we take this posture every day. When we sit for the Heartfulness Prayer, we assume it on purpose, outwardly and inwardly, often before we truly feel it. That is not pretense, and it is not beating ourselves down. It is how attitude is learned. A posture held with sincerity draws the inner state toward it, until one day the bowing is no longer something we do but something we are. Then the four are no longer four. They are one posture of the heart seen from four sides, and the heart is empty enough for the current to flow. This is exactly what the Heartfulness Prayer is designed to do.

The Prayer Itself

Babuji introduces the Heartfulness Prayer in his commentary on the second maxim. Just before it, he describes the state of negation as “the very Reality itself.” He then explains that he considers the following prayer to be essential for an abhyasi:

O Master! Thou art the real goal of human life; 
we are yet but slaves of wishes putting bar to our advancement. 
Thou art the only God and power to bring us up to that stage.

—Babuji, Complete Works of Ram Chandra, vol. 1, pp. 207–8.

Each line does part of the work of opening the heart.

• “Thou art the real goal of human life” fixes the direction. Without a goal, the current has nowhere to go.
• “We are yet but slaves of wishes putting bar to our advancement” names what fills the heart and blocks the flow: our wishes and our self-importance.
• “Thou art the only God and power to bring us up to that stage” expresses surrender and creates the vacuum.

Daaji calls the words a springboard. They are meant to invoke the feeling beneath them. Eventually, he says, “there will be no words at all, and a total acceptance of whatever the present moment gives” (Designing Destiny, p. 50).

Prayer and Sankalpa

The attitudes close the circuit. Sankalpa gives the current its direction. In Designing Destiny, Daaji describes these two vital things coming together in prayer:

On the one hand, prayer connects you with your highest Self through the heart, to dive so deep that you connect with the Source of everything. On the other hand, it uses the power of thought or suggestion to bring about change, and this we call sankalpa in Yoga.

—Daaji, Designing Destiny, p. 51.

Connection is what makes sankalpa potent. And sankalpa is what keeps returning us to connection when we drift. Each gives life to the other. A thought offered from a connected heart, Daaji says, “is no longer from our own individual level. It becomes a key to unlock evolution, to bring about transformation” (Designing Destiny, p. 52).

Keeping the Switch On

Prayer is not meant to connect us only for the few minutes we sit. Daaji describes how, as the prayer is mastered, “the inner connection is always there,” whether we are studying, eating breakfast, or with friends—a 24–hour business that needs less and less time (Designing Destiny, p. 52). What begins as a few seconds of prayer at night slowly becomes a prayerful state that never switches off.

Where the Connection Leads

The link prayer opens to the Source does not just stay between seeker and Source. Babuji describes where it led in his own life:

“…I felt his light alone shining in every heart,
whether that of a friend or foe. The result 
was that finally I began to feel my own self
in every being.”

—Babuji, Complete Works of Ram Chandra, vol. 2, p. 248.

When the connection to the Source is open, 
the connection to everyone else 
becomes visible on its own. 
We are brethren because we come 
from the same central point.

Babuji’s Basant Panchami message of 1982 brings an insight into this:

“We are all brethren connected intellectually, morally, and spiritually — the main goal of human life. This and that have gone now. There remains the purity alone in all His work and environment which weaves the spiritual destiny of the persons with the Ultimate.”

—Babuji, Complete Works of Ram Chandra, vol. 3, p. 483.

When the connection to the Source is open, the connection to everyone else becomes visible on its own. We are brethren because we come from the same central point.

Closing

Babuji called prayer the most important and unfailing means of success, because it connects us to God. The power was never missing. The wiring was always there. What prayer changes is the condition of the heart. Humility, supplicancy, innocence, and insignificance create the vacuum, and the current flows. Remembrance keeps it flowing through the day. In time, the sorting of life into this and that falls away, and what remains, in Babuji’s words, is “purity alone in all His work and environment which weaves the spiritual destiny of the persons with the Ultimate.”

REFERENCES:

Patel, Kamlesh D. Designing Destiny: Heartfulness Practice to Find Your Purpose and Fulfill Your Potential. Westland, 2019.

Patel, Kamlesh D. Spiritual Anatomy: Meditation, Chakras, and the Journey to the Center. Balance, 2023.

Patel, Kamlesh D., and Elizabeth Denley. The Heartfulness Way, Vol. 2: Contemplating Life’s Great Questions on the Nature of Reality. Penguin Ananda, 2025.

Ram Chandra of Shahjahanpur. Complete Works of Ram Chandra. Vols. 1–3, Spiritual Hierarchy Publication Trust, 2009.

FROM HEARTFULNESS INSTITUTE

The Heartfulness Institute is a global not-for-profit offering heart-based meditation, a yogic practice for inner well-being and collective harmony.

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